Blood Red, Snow White
by Ardente
Summary: Beyond Blood Forest where mangled bodies of soldiers sleep uneasily, past River Black who's dwellers will snatch you among their midst, is the Kingdom Rhuin, where there was no such thing as happily ever after. Retelling of Snow White
1. Prologue

Blood Red, Snow White

Prologue

Magic creeps in when we least expect it. Slowly, over the progress of many many years, it seeps into the rivers, the lakes, the earth, and the trees, until it finally makes its presence known. It is influenced to be the kind of magic it is by past occurences on the place it has decided to live, much like a young child, who will be influenced to be the kind of person their parents were.

One such place was the forest that separated two powerful, bloodthirsty kingdoms that had been at war for centuries. Tradition was that the armies would cross their kingdoms and meet deep inside the woods, where they would battle on the centerline of their nation. Thousands of lives had been lost to that cause, slaughtered and massacred by merciless warriors, and thousands more lost in the woods when they had strayed too far away. That forest became legendary, and they called it Blood Forest, and countless wars had been fought amid its trees. Decapitated heads bitten and mangled by vultures stood upon picks along the paths that were overrun by poison ivy and stinging nettle, and the bones of the tortured lay under the dirt, whispering their sad stories, and their evil emotions to the trees. After many strange events, the wood soon retired from its post as battlefield. The dead were piling up faster than they could decompose, the trails draped with bloody carcasses, their ever feuding blood seeping into the dirt, and the survivors went mad from what they said they saw spectres, demons and ghouls.

Blood Forest became legendary across the world of Thaim, it was regarded as a secret, killing, bloodthirsty, haunted place, and none dared to venture in its midst, for fear of being attacked by the creatures that lived there or the tries that had demons within their branches, or even worse, getting lost and never being able to find their way out, doomed to wander through the horrors that none could even imagine.

No one put a step into the wood, and everyone began to believe that tortured trees of Blood Forest had finally grown peaceful and had forgotten their blood hunger, and abandoned hope of being able to grope their branches around one more quivering throat.

Yet they wereso very wrong.


	2. Moonlit night

Moonlit night

The sky was illuminated by the unusually bright moon, which cast shadows over the rustling dark leaves of the trees and on the grass. A thick heavy fog clung mercilessly to the ground and the wheels of the carriage that sped by the countryside, the fog like restless spirits clinging onto a hope of peace. The driver shivered despite his thick clothing, and tried to ignore the horses' whinnies as they continued the journey. The driver tried hard to focus on the countryside and not to turn to gaze up at the tall trees with their black leaves.

Inside the carriage, safe from the wind, were the Duke and Duchess of Pent, adorned in fine clothing, as they were traveling home from a ball held in the neighboring manor. The Duchess, adorned in a blue velvet gown trimmed in gold, shivered in her finery and tried to sleep while shaking the feeling of a lingering doom away. Her husband stroked her black hair that contrasted with her pale skin and blue eyes. He watched her stomach rise and fall with each breath. He looked out the window, trying desperately to forget the tales he had heard of the forest that they were traveling beside. He wondered if his decision to leave the ball that night had been silly and frivolous as the driver said, and wondered if maybe they had been better off to have stayed at the manor for the night. When he noticed his wife shiver, he pulled her to him, and pressed his lips on hers. Their kiss became more passionate as she slipped her tongue in his mouth. He lay his hand over her exposed and cold breasts, caressing them gently while she sighed in his mouth. Their kiss was interrupted when the carriage abruptly stopped. The Duke got out to talk to the driver, while the Duchess, who's name was Beth, shivered.

"Thomas why have we…?" His question remained unanswered when he noticed that Thomas, the driver, wasn't sitting at the driver's seat. The horses were also missing. The Duke, called William, crept into the carriage again, trying to calm his quickening heart while he thought up a plan about what they should do.

"Darling what is wrong? Why have we stopped?" William didn't know what to reply. "I think we are going to have to sleep in the carriage tonight Beth." So he shut the door as firmly as possible, drew the curtains to cover the forest, and took his wife in his arms while they huddled for warmth. After a few minutes, Beth fell asleep, while her husband clutched her tightly. But as the winds continued to howl, he swore he could hear him they chanting their names. "William…Beth….Thomas…" over and over again, getting louder and louder. Finally, he woke his wife up.

"Come on we are getting out of here if we have to walk." As soon as they had walked a few paces, he knew he had made a mistake as his duchess whimpered about her shoes, delicate satin heels, and she implored him to stop and return to the carriage. They had only walked about fifteen meters, but in the winter air, they both realized that it would be impossible to make it to their manor without freezing to death, or being eaten by wolves. As soon as they turned, though, they were at lost for words. The carriage was gone too.

"But where could it have gone? It was right here! A carriage just doesn't vanish into thin air!" When he realized exactly what he had said, he fell silent. A carriage _could _vanish into thin air. Especially when right beside Blood Forest. "We are going to die." His wife looked up. "What? What did you say? No we cant die, no, how could we die?" she gave a shaky laugh. "People go walking by these woods all the time! It is just a little chilly!" Her husband looked at her. "People don't walk by these woods all the time. People never live to tell even if they did." He watched his wife's eyes grow big as she tried to laugh it off. His look silenced her.

" Wait, over there! Look! A cottage! What luck!" Beth said this triumphantly, and squinted to get a better look at the small cottage with the smoking chimney that lay not more than a hundred paces. She laughed, relieved, removed her shoes, took her husband's hand, and started to run to the cottage.

No one ever saw them again. The next morning, a Count found a small baby with raven curls and blue eyes wailing on his doorstep.

Thanks to everyone who reads this! (Please review if you do read this!)

Criticism is very welcome, I would love to try and improve this, so be totally honest.

So sorry I didn't update this sooner, I actually gave up when I had no reviews, but then when I went on today, I was happy, so decided to keep it going!

Babble fish: Glad you liked it!

Lumiere's lover: I hope you still feel the same throughout the whole thing!

Aerinha: Yup it is Snow White. No problem about reading your stories, they are good!


	3. A lesson

"Put your homework on my desk as you leave the class when it is finished. Alright, now having been dealing with charms and enchantments of the whiter side, we now progress into the blackest domain you will study here at Pemberton's Academy. Curses. Now who can tell me the rank required to perform Bogies and Hexes? Corrimund!"

"Wizard, Professor."

"Very good. Magicians can only perform illusions, and wizards execute more real magic that can be used in practical ways as well as frivolous. Can anyone tell me who can perform curses? No one?"

The class looked at each other, and then one small child hesitantly put her hand up.

"Mama doesn't think it appropriate to be discussing charms. She says it is a sin to even speak of them."

The teacher ran his hands through his hair, in utter bewilderment of the ignorance of the little girl's mother. "Do anyone else's parents feel this way?"

To his utter astonishment, the rest of the class raised their hands.

"But this is absurd! How must you recognize curses if you aren't allowed to speak of them? One thing you must know right now is that curses aren't dead, curses _do not die. _That is why they can't be performed by just anyone. A tiny seed of evil made from something so powerful it cannot be explained is enveloped in intricate layers of magic; and only can they be broken when you can manipulate these layers. The only one that can do this is the one who put the curse into being. Curses aren't obvious, you aren't going to open a cupboard and find a black cloud labeled 'CURSE'. Nor are you likely to find a signpost reading: 'Curse ahead, turn back now.' No, those who are unfortunate enough to fall into such a predicament are usually looking for something, are simply stupid, or the curse was meant to wait for them this whole time. Curses need to be buried in something, soil, the skies, or a woman's womb for it to live. If a curse is placed into a woman and manipulated correctly, it can become a creature that can make curses, or a demon of destruction. If not executed properly, the mother could become a mutant creation of evil, and always in this practice, the mother dies. Sometimes it is used simply as a painful way of killing a woman who has offended, and then the child is killed. But if the child is not killed… Anyways, it is entirely another matter when a wizard takes an existing curse and masks it to do the wizard's bidding, although this ends messily as the first curse lurks under somewhere. The only magic users who can create these curses are Whisperers, the highest rank we know. The- - oh, Tonmi, do you have a question?"

"But- - I thought Enchanters were the highest rank Professor."

"Ah, yes, you are right in a fashion Tonmi. Enchanters are the highest you can reach by work, Whisperers, however, are born with the ability to become one. Some never find their gifts. The thing is most parents suppress any such hint of a talent in their children at a young age because of the dangers it presents. Whisperers are a great asset to any kingdom, they protect and shield the people who live there, and invent all sorts of interesting and useful spells. The King needs one desperately, but cannot find one. The problem is it is rare for a Whisperer to be good. Most of the time, greed takes over, and from there arrogance, and then jealousy, until layers of these emotions surround them and in a sense, become a curse themselves. Whisperers possess many talents, and they can be reborn over and over in their choice of person. You all know of blood forest, correct?"

The class obediently nodded, and sat up straight. It was extremely rare to hear an adult speak of the intriguing forest.

"Well, what happened was there was a Whisperer named Effelin. She rushed through her tutelage with great speed and skill, and was marveled throughout the world. She was beautiful and intelligent, until one day, something in her changed. No one knew why, but she started to disappear. Time progressed and the forest in between our kingdom and the kingdom of Rith began to snatch lives up quickly and mercilessly. A war raged between the two kingdoms, the wars took place in between the kingdoms, making the forest a graveyard. Effelin turned out to have lived in the wood, and she took over Rhuin. She ruled and men fell at her feet in love with her beauty, and they were each executed. The death that happened during those years was not to be believed. And all the while she laughed, as the people she had once loved wondered what had happened to their Effelin as they were killed. And then one day, the fighting stopped. People realized that they were killing off people that they needed to overcome this force of evil. Now, Whisperers fear a few certain things. Extreme heat, suffocation, poison, and above all, sugar. Class, you laugh, but you would do well to remember it. The people took over and covered the palace in sugar, heated it up, and forced her out. They tried to kill her but without success. They pushed her into the forest graveyard she had created and doomed her to stay there. On the day of her banishment she spoke to them, saying that they couldn't force her, but she would go. Yet she would come back in another form, and that they should all be prepared. And then what happened then is she created a curse and embedded it into the center of the forest."

The teacher looked at his class, gave a shaky laugh, and then dismissed him. He didn't know that that would be his last class, he was relieved of his position and banished to Rith as punishment for telling children what parents said were lies and fairy tales.

The thing to remember is that when fear takes over, the truth is dismissed as fictional, and a crime at that. The poor teacher should have remembered this before the children ran off to tell their parents what they had learned in school that day.

Ardente

Thank you so much for reading this and having patience,

I know this hasn't been updated in awhile, I had writer's block with this. But it's back, and I know what's going to happen so keep reading!.

Reviews are so nice, thanks so much for all your encouragement.

Chap 4 coming up soon…


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